FYI

Actor J. August Richards didn’t know what he was getting into when he began playing Mike Peterson on “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Once I found out my character was being turned into Deathlok — because everything is a secret working for Marvel (Comics), you find out on a need-to-know basis — I unearthed my comic book collection,” looking for Deathlok comics, Richards said.

Richards appears as Deathlok — a character born in Detroit — on Tuesday’s episode.

Artist Rich Buckler, a Detroit native, created Deathlok, who debuted in “Astonishing Tales” No. 25 in 1974. The character began as Col. Luther Manning, a soldier from Detroit who was fatally injured, then reanimated in a cyborg body.

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“There was nothing like Deathlok in comics before that. Or movies, for that matter,” said Buckler, who now lives in New York City. “(Marvel co-founder) Stan Lee at the time didn’t even know what to make of it. Deathlok was the first of his kind in terms of concept and appearance. All the other cyborg super-soldier characters that have come after him in movies and comics seem to be patterned after that prototype.”

If that sounds like Robocop, a Detroit policeman resurrected through a mechanical body in the movie “Robocop,” Buckler agrees, saying Robocop is an “extremely close imitation” of Deathlok. “A whole lot of comics fans would agree with me,” he said.

Another version of Deathlok — whose human identity is Michael Collins — debuted in the 1990 comic book “Deathlok” No. 1, created by Gregory Wright, Jackson Guice, and the late Dwayne McDuffie, a graduate of The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills.

Richards, who lives in Los Angeles, thought his Mike Peterson would instead become the street-smart superhero Luke Cage, who was unjustly imprisoned and altered in a prison experiment that gave him bulletproof skin and superhuman strength.

“The truth of the matter is I heard that rumor so much, I started questioning whether or not I was playing Luke Cage. The buzz was so loud. … Were they gonna call me Mike, then dub it in and call me Luke? I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I really didn’t,” says Richards, best known as Charles Gunn on “Angel,” the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” spinoff.

On “S.H.I.E.L.D.” — a spin-off of the 2012 movie “Marvel’s The Avengers” — Peterson possesses superhuman strength. He joined espionage agency. SH.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division), but lost his right leg and was badly burned on a mission. Under control of the unseen Clairvoyant, his leg was replaced with a bionic prosthetic as part of Project: Deathlok in the Feb. 4 episode.

Wright and McDuffie wrote their character not as a cop or soldier, but a pacifist — someone least likely to be placed in Deathlok’s cyborg body.

“He’d be principled, desperate to raise his son to be a good man and a man of peace. Imagine the nightmare he would find waking up inside the ultimate killing machine,” said Wright, of North Woodmere, N.Y. He said Richards’ Deathlok in “S.H.I.E.L.D.” is similar to that concept.

“He’s definitely conflicted, being used against his will, and dedicated to his son — all stuff we were doing in our series,” Wright said. “I wonder if there will be more cybernetic parts added. And I really like (Richards). He seems to be portraying Michael Collins. I know (Richards) read some of our comics, really liked them, and based some of his characterization on them. I hope they give Peterson a happy ending because that poor guy’s been tortured enough.”

Buckler worried that this TV Deathlok may replace his original creation in pop culture. Nonetheless, he’s pleased a version of his character made it to the small screen.

“He looks intense. He looks the part,” Buckler said of Richards’ Deathlok. “I would like to see him look a lot more like the Deathlok from the comics.”

“I always liked the psychological element of the person behind the costume,” Richards said. “I didn’t realize this at the time, but I spent my entire childhood researching the character that I’m playing right now. I really feel like I understand what it takes to play a superhero or a character with powers — you really have to understand the human being behind it.

“With Deathlok, that is the most important element ... because he’s got such incredible conflict. I just feel so honored to be playing such a rich and complex character. Honestly, it took me many days to figure out how to really play him because, again, he’s so conflicted on a human level. How does that translate into the physicality, the voice, the action? Once I figured it out, it was such a great breakthrough.”

At one point in his career, Richards wanted to play James Bond, but not anymore.

“Playing a superhero trumps all that,” he said. “I’m always looking for a role that’s really, really demanding and something that’s never been done before — that’s what turns me on about any role. I feel like I have that right now in Deathlok.”